Page 18 of Brother's Keeper

Even if Jax was in charge of things in Grimm’s absence, he was at best, a figurehead. The gang’s hierarchy remained intact, and underlings like Jax were little more than pawns to be moved and sacrificed as needed.

“Where’s your fan club?” I asked him, steering the conversation away from dangerous territory. “Did they join, too?”

Jax smirked. “They’re around.”

Holland tapped her finger on the notepad. “The missing people, Fitch,” she said in a hushed voice. “Ask about them.”

“He’s new on the scene,” I replied dismissively. “Wouldn’t know about it.”

Jax narrowed his single, yellow eye. “You should ask, anyway,” he said. “Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

Holland swiveled to face the shapeshifter. “Severalinfluential members of our society have gone missing in recent weeks. We believe it might have had to do with the vote to open the city gate. Something the Bloody Hex had a vested interest in.”

He blinked. “What’s your question?”

“Do you know anything about it?” she asked. “Have you seen or heard anything suspicious? Even rumors?”

I tried not to show my worry as Jax pinned me with a gleeful look.

“I might have,” he said. “But you’ll have to ask me nicely. And say please.”

“What are you playing at?” I barked. “If you wanna run your mouth, you don’t need my approval, but I wonder what Grimm will think when he finds out you marched your happy ass in here, begging to spill secrets.”

In the middle of my tirade, realization struck. I’d already said it. Jax was too fresh, too recent of an addition to our ranks to have gone through our dirty laundry. Even the kidnapping victims had come and gone before him.

“It’s an act, isn’t it?” My chuckle wiped the smug expression from Jax’s face. “You don’t know shit.” I passed the notepad and pen to Holland. “I told you. He’s a lackey. A nobody.”

Standing, I was ready to leave. Be done with this and hope the three investigators outside realized who this joker was and hauled him back to prison. I would have ratted him out myself, but I was happy enough to have him running things for the Hex. Better the devil you know, right?

I gripped the back of my chair, then pushed it againstthe table. “If you want info, you need to go higher on the food chain,” I told Holland. “Somebody with one of these.”

When I waved my Hex mark in the air, I made sure Jax got a good, long look. I was talking to Holland but glaring at the shapeshifter as I finished, “But those guys won’t tell you anything because they understand self-preservation and have some fucking common sense.”

Jax leaped to his feet and slammed both palms on the table. The sound echoed in the tiny room.

I expected him to yell or growl, so when he lunged and went cat-shaped in midair, I didn’t have the presence of mind to stop him.

He landed on top of me, knocking us both to the ground in a painful collision of paws and claws. My elbows then my head collided with the thinly carpeted floor. Everything blanked to black, and I sucked a breath, forcing my eyes open to find myself facing the open maw of the panther. Saliva roped from its jowls as it blew hot, fetid breath straight up my nose.

“Fuck off!” I snapped and shoved him with both hands and my brain. It would have flung him back if he hadn’t sunk his teeth into the skin of my left forearm.

His front fangs dug in, tearing deep gashes down past my wrist. Blood blossomed rich and red, splattering my clothes and the floor. Jax shook his massive head, and I yelped as pain spiked straight to my skull.

The door flew open, and Tobin, Vesper, and Felix barreled in.

The panther’s single yellow eye went abruptly glassy, fixed in place and unfocused. His chest, which had beenheaving, stayed swollen. His mouth clamped down on my arm, flooding my brain with panic signals that redirected every other thought. I could process enough to realize what had happened, though. Time had stopped in the bubble of space above me. Jax was caught in it while the investigative team gawked.

Tobin stood beside Holland, who had her gun drawn and angled toward the big cat’s skull. I appreciated her holding her fire because a bullet at this range was likely to go through Jax and into my mangled arm. But I didn’t appreciate being locked in the jaws of the beast hellbent on detaching my hand.

“Great work, guys.” My voice wavered between measured breaths. “Now what?”

Blood dripped from my fingers into a puddle on the carpet. The wound stemming from the panther’s curved, white canines stretched from my elbow to my wrist, where he’d really dug in. Red covered everything, filling in and spilling over the trenches cut through my skin.

“Felix, get a healer in here!” someone shouted.

Holland? Or maybe Vesper.

The lucky investigator bolted out of the room.

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